American Minerals: The Key to Revitalizing U.S. Infrastructure

April 5, 2017

Minerals and metals are essential to rebuilding or expanding American roads, airports, railroads and pipelines. They make up the foundations for the world’s tallest buildings, communications grids and even national defense systems. Basically, minerals and metals keep our society operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

For example, six billion tons of steel can be found in the U.S. national Highway System, and wind turbines require four to five times more copper than conventional power generators. Silver is a huge component of solar energy infrastructure, and molybdenum can be found in the world’s tallest buildings and projects deep below the sea.

Recently, the new administration and Congress have emphasized the importance of improving America’s aging infrastructure, and they’ve signaled that domestic minerals should be used to drive these improvements.

Voters agree. According to a recent poll conducted by Morning Consult for the National Mining Association, seventy-one percent of registered voters support using domestically-sourced materials for government-funded infrastructure projects. Sixty-five percent of voters also support enacting policies such as shorter permitting timeframes to provide American infrastructure projects and the domestic manufacturing industry with timely access to important minerals and metals that build steady and stable supply chains.

Companies like Rio Tinto, Freeport-McMoRan, Hecla and Coeur are working hard every day to supply the copper, silver, zinc and molybdenum to make this infrastructure modernization a reality.

More than Two in Three Voters Support Streamlining the Mine Permitting Process to Increase Availability of the Domestic Minerals Required to Support Infrastructure Rebuilding Efforts
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eighty-six percent of voters are concerned about the state of American infrastructure, according... Read More